“In ’89, only Communism was killed, but the former state security and Communist Party chiefs took the economic power,” said Marius Oprea, president of the Institute for the Investigation of the Crimes of Communism, a Romanian government group.

But nowhere has the struggle between the former secret services and the forces for change been as intense as in Romania, now poised to join the European Union.

While the heads of the secret services have been changed and the services have been reorganized, much of the rank and file remains, now with ties to a powerful business elite.

Many of the most powerful businessmen in Romania have links to the Securitate, even if they deny having benefited from such relationships — something that is, by its nature, difficult to prove.

Silvian Ionescu, the country’s top environmental official, was a former high-ranking Securitate officer who became wealthy after Communism’s fall through various business deals

But the security services have not yet turned over all of the files, and there is widespread suspicion that the most important ones are being withheld.

Si concluzia, vine cu atat mai dezamagitoare: “There are always new files appearing,” he [Turianu] said, pausing to pour a visitor a glass of Scotch with shaking hands. He said the process will continue until those who were adults before 1989 are dead. “Then,” he said, “nature will take its course.”